www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Caeseropapism

The Latin West had to develop a way for the Church to play a pivitol role in defending Christendom and in advancing the faith. The East tended to give much of that authority by choice or necessity to the Emperor. A a result the West was able to successfully evangelize their attackers or to resist them. The East, not so much. What effect do you think this has had on the present church(es)? Do you think our emphasis made it more possible for Islam to overrun the East and more possible for the West to resist it? Do you think our emphasis upon tiny little churches both at the local and eparchial level is a result of our tendency to let someone else evangelize for us?

CDL,

Hmm ... I always thought the most significant factor here was the fact that the fall of Old Rome occurred before the rise of Islam, and that at that time--especially in the West--the world was seen as divided between civilized Christians and Barbarian pagans. Although it was still difficult, converting the Barbarians was facilitated by the latter's desire for civilization and their perception that Christianity and civilization went hand in hand.

By the time New Rome fell, however, the Muslims were well known, along with their attitude of being more intensly loyal to their religion than the Chrisians were to theirs.

However, your point definitely has some merit--I guess I don't know enough about this particular point of Byzantine history to form any conclusions about it.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Gee, Carson, how many caricatures and cliches can you fit into a single paragraph?

By now, almost all historians have discounted the concept of Caesaropapism as an erroneous understanding of Church-state relations in the Byzantine period. Despite what is often said in polemics, the Byzantine Emperors were never really able to dictate Church doctrine nor impose their will on the Church on issues the Church considered important. Thus, neither monophysitism, nor monothelitism, nor iconoclasm nor the unions of Lyons and Florence were able to gain acceptance in the Church of Constantinople, despite serious Imperial lobbying (and a bit of arm-twisting, in the literal sense).

It would be better to understand the relation between Empire and Church as synergia, with each generally allowing the other free rein in its appointed sphere, under the understanding that the Church would support the state, as long as the state supported the Church and enacted policies consistent with true doctrine.

Only when we get to the Muscovite Empire do we see the emergence of real caesaropapism, particularly from the reign of Ivan IV onward, and especially during and after Peter the Great, during whose rule the Church became part of the Russian civil service (after the model of the Protestant national churches that Peter envied so much).

The Byzantines were particularly good at evangelizing their attackers. Note that the Bulgars and the Slavs both adopted Byzantine Christianity in fairly short order, whereas it took the Western Church centuries (and a bit of genocide) to convert the pagan Saxons, Prussians, Danes, Wends, Frisians, etc., etc.

Where the West had to bear the full brunt of the Islamic wave, it folded up pretty quickly. Where is the Great Church of Africa, the Church of Cyprian and Augustine? Passed to dust, with Nineveh and Tyre. And Spain remained under Moorish rule for something close to seven centuries. The wonder is Byzantium did not also go under at the same time, which is a testament to the durability of Roman institutions as well as to the Church of Constantinople as a focus of unity and social cohesion from the 7th century onward.

Note that it was neither the Arabs nor the Turks who killed Byzantium: it was Western Christians, particularly the Normans and the Franks of the Fourth Crusade. They struck a blow from which the Empire never recovered, and its survival through the Paleologian period is another testament to the underlying strength of Byzantine civilization.

Stuart,

I appreciate the point you're trying to make about Byzantium, but if I were you I wouldn't try to denigrate the North African Church. I am sure you know very well the troubles of the North African Church first under the Arians and later under the Muhammadans. Who are we to sit in judgment on a sister Church?

Not a judgment, just an observation of an historical fact. You left out the century or so during which the Church of Africa was subject to persecution by the Arian Vandals. But Belisarius recaptured the province for Justinian, and it had been firmly in the Catholic Orthodox camp for more than a century when the Arabs showed up. The Donatists were history long before then.

Does blinding 14,000 Bulgars, as Basil II The Bulgar Slayer did, count as genocide? Anyway, it took about 300 years from the arrival of Bulgars in the Balkans to their conversion in 864, which desn't make the Byzantines more efficient in converting pagans than the West.


Or that the Franks and Normans had no intention to destroy the entire Byzantine civilization and that they didn't care much about what's going on in the Nicene empire and its neighbors.

The story of Basil Bulgaroktonos is colorful but apocryphal. That's a fancy way of saying it never happened. But that's irrelevant, since when it was supposed to have happened in 1014, the Bulgars had been Christians for 150 years.

Also note that, from the Byzantine perspective, blinding and mutilation were considered merciful alternatives to the death penalty, about which they were generally reluctant, because every human being is made in the image and likeness of God.

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The Bulgars arrived in the Balkans in the 7th century and were recognized by the Byzantines in a treaty dated 681. This is in the midst of the Byzantine Dark Ages, during which time they were rather busy trying to stave off obliteration by Arabs and other enemies in the east. The First Bulgar Empire remained ascendent until the time of Khan Krum, but thereafter the Byzantine recovery began in earnest, allowing both time and resources to be devoted to the evangelization of the Bulgars. So, the real horizon, from first missionary efforts to the conversion of Tsar Boris in 852 is only about fifty years, during which time the Bulgars accepted both Orthodoxy and Byzantine culture as a turnkey operation. The same pattern was later repeated with the Kyivan Rus.


For indications to the contrary, see Jonathan Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades, as well as Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Vol. III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades. Edward Luttwak's Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is particularly good on explaining the resilience of Byzantium and the critical role of the Church in Byzantine strategy. See my review here: The Byzantine Doctrine [weeklystandard.com]

Why don't Eastern Catholics in general evangelize?

Because for centuries the Roman Catholic Church discouraged it. We're the ethnic ghetto, we're supposed to look out for our own and leave evangelization for the RC (Really Catholic) Church.

First, is it true that Eastern Catholics don't evangelize?

Second, if it is true, what good does it do blaming someone else for your own failings?

Not very much, though recently some of us have gotten fed up with the status quo.


The Holy See directs that Eastern Catholic Churches are not to evangelize outside of their own "historic territory", actively discourages us from evangelizing, sanctions our Churches when they do, and it is somehow our fault that we don't evangelize? You now see how much joy it is to be Eastern Catholic--damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Caeseropapism doesn't seem to be a topic that comes up in discussion very often. When it does it makes me think of Dr. Scott Hahn's now famous critique of Eastern Orthodoxy:

Speaking of superficial . . . that analysis of Orthodoxy, and of the Russian Orthodox Church in particular, is extremely superficial.

I was just reading a book a few days ago written by Dr. Wallace L. Daniel, entitled: "The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia," in which he addressed the very issue that Scott Hahn mentioned in his "critique" of Orthodoxy, i.e., the relationship between Church and state in Russia. Now instead of reiterating the common view that the Russian Orthodox Church was always subservient to the state, Dr. Daniel spoke about the symphonia that existed between them up until the time of Peter the Great, and he even gave examples of how the Orthodox concept of symphonia was exercised. Moreover, as he puts it, it was only when Russia's political leadership decided to Westernize the nation that this symphonia was broken. Here is what he said in connection with the topic:

Finally, it is important to remember that communism itself was another Western European idea imported into Russia, which was harshly grafted on to Russian civil society by the Bolsheviks, and of course one of its primary goals was the eradication of Orthodoxy.

Dear brother Stuart,

Can you please provide documentary proof for the following three statements you made?

1) The Holy See directs that Eastern Catholic Churches are not to evangelize outside of their own "historic territory."

2) Actively discourages us from evangelizing.

3) Sanctions our Churches when they do.

Thanks.

Blessings,
Marduk

And Catholicism. Moreso Catholicism, in fact (if the forcible liquidation of Byzantine Catholic Churches, and forcible "conversion" to Eastern Orthodoxy, during the Communist period is any indication), because while Eastern Orthodoxy was amenable to caeseropapism, Catholicism was not.

Blessings,
Marduk